Labour talks to resume on Tuesday

The NHL and the players’ association agreed on Monday to resume labour talks Tuesday following a weekend session with NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly and NHLPA special counsel Steve Fehr. It was the first meeting between the two sides since Oct. 18.

Monday marked Day 51 of the lockout.

Both the league and the NHLPA decided to keep the exact location of Tuesday afternoon’s bargaining session private.

Both players and owners were expected to be in New York for Tuesday’s meetings, including Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, who told reporters in Pittsburgh that he made a “last minute” decision to go to New York.

No new formal proposals were made on the weekend, but it is believed the issue of payments of existing player contracts was a big part of the discussions.

“I’m not in a position to talk substance about agenda or expectations,” Daly wrote in an email to The Associated Press.

Philadelphia Flyers teammates Max Talbot and Bruno Gervais, who organized La Tournée des Joeurs, announced Monday that the barnstorming tour across Quebec by locked-out NHLers was finished, but not before raising more than $400,000 for a variety of charities.

“We have a small group of volunteers who followed us around who have real jobs and it was getting hard for them and it was getting hard to maintain the number of players we needed so that we have a good game,” Talbot said at a news conference announcing the tour was over.

You can read Pat Hickey’s column from the news conference by clicking here.

Meanwhile, the Florida Panthers, trying to keep their season-seat holders happy during the lockout, offered them 50 per cent off the price of tickets for The Who concert that was held on Nov. 1 at the BB&T Center. Read more by clicking here.

Never really followed the AHL even during the last lockout but with all the young talent this year I am excited to watch more Bulldogs games…Does anyone else feel like the games are few and far between ? How many games do AHL teams play each season?

Once Gomer re-signed to a 10mil/year extension and MAB is signed to finish his career in Mtl, Price’s winning a cup and Hart and Conn Smythe is a given. Although, one would argue that MAB would win the Conn Smythe.

Mitt?!!! I hope Obama wins big and publicly shoves the result up Mitts arse and down his throat and sends him back to the wilderness whimpering like the little girl that he is. There, that feels better! Go Habs, Go Als and Go Obama!

Lucic’s bigger than Bettman, so he’ll hit him from behind like he does all the smaller vulnerable players on the ice. I still think of that hit on Miller. I’m hoping Miller decapitates him this season.

I don’t think Lucic scares anyone really, I always find it comical how he acts so tough running smaller players and fighting non-fighters, the guy is a joke, if it weren’t for Thornton or Chara Lucic would have been beaten out of the NHL years ago.

He showed his true colors when he ran away from George Laraque in 2008, when I hear the word LUCIC, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. I amazes me that he is still feared after that happened.

The guy is a huge coward, nothing more, I cant wait until someone bigger and better comes along and ends his career (the day will come….) if that happens then every NHL fan will stand up and cheer. 3:)

Good question Blondie. Perhaps they’ve just made themselves available to appease the press. Not sure if Fehr will be there. I agree with you that what we hear after the session will be if more interest.

there will always be an insiderrrrrrrrr. problem with his rumour is that I believe they were barely even linemates in sarnia, from what i understood, gally was the 2nd line center so it wouldnt be ‘reuiniting’ them in that aspect.

Question to all you people trying, and I use the word lightly, to write hockey based lyrics for already existing tunes… do any of you understand what the concept of rhyming is or perhaps better yet what metre is?

Reading some of these half-arsed attempts is like driving a car with wooden wheels on a cobble stone road.

“President Obama’s fairly grim, toothless, meandering and perfunctory presidency gained excellent contrast from an assemblage of GOP candidates so demented and corrupt that even to so describe them would be an insult to the many hard-working demented and corrupt politicians extant today. It was an array of desperate, shambling criminals (and Jon Huntsman, who presumably was there on a bet) that may have been unprecedented, even in the stinking cesspool of American politics, in its lunatic evil. The “winner” of the GOP race was always going to be the one who didn’t shit themselves on stage. But the GOP itself couldn’t win, because, of the bunch running, the best you could hope for was a candidate who didn’t shit themselves on stage.

Which is exactly what the Republican party got. A man who’s only coherent when he’s lying. Any solid political points he might have made have been washed away in a tide of dissembling, flipflopping and outright bullshitting.”

It is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Well we all know this is crunch time now. The next 2-3 weeks are what is left to actually save the season in my opinion. I felt that once the NHLPA rejected the owners offer a few weeks ago, that the owners would wait a few weeks before getting back to bargaining. Looks like I was right. Why did I think this? Well because the last proposal the owners said this was to save the 82 game season. I knew if the owners didn’t get EXACTLY what they wanted then they would want the players to suffer a tad. Owners are losing $ daily. But the players were still getting escrow money till last week, and the players were saying that they could still play 82 games even if season started mid-Nov. Well owners want to make the players feel like they lost something. So it’s all about them now losing salary. No more escrow payements coming, means that as of last week no new money was coming to players. Play less then 82 games, means that the players will lose salary. Right now they still believe they can play 82 games and make up all their salary for the year. Owners will not allow this to happen.

I still feel we will have a season, but owners will wait until it is definate that they can NOT play 82 games and make sure the players lose something from all this mess. Just my feeling. Season will start some time between Dec1-15.

The owners will not lose anymore money than the players, regardless of when the checks come in. The owners will get 50% of HRR, and the players will get 50% of HRR regardless of how many games they play.

I can see your point that the owners may have a petty desire to hurt the players and vise versa, but any damage the owners have accumulated will be passed on to the players. That’s the whole point of a linked system and cost certainty.

I will say yes he does. I was born in ’84…so was only around for two of their Cups…even then, was very young for both. But I will still bring up the cups won when in an argument with someone else.
I believe if someone becomes a Habs fan, it is for many reasons….one including being that they have such a successful and rich history…..which I am proud of, even though I wasn’t around to witness it first hand.
If he is now a Habs fan, good for him to see the light, I say let him brag about whatever he wants 😛
If he is smart, he won’t tell people he used to be a Leafs fan.

“I think I may have found a way for us to get Griffey and Bonds, and we really won’t have to give up much” -Costanza

I’ve never really understood the whole ‘rubbing it in’ thing when it comes to supporting teams.

I couldn’t care less how other people feel when they support a team – I just assume it’s the way I feel about the Habs – and I certainly wouldn’t want to make them feel bad about something that they care about. It’s a ‘do unto others’ thing, I guess.

I don’t think anyone can ‘claim a right’ to anything that the Habs have won. We didn’t play for the team or help build it. We can be proud of our team, and of our heritage, but as for claiming anything, it’s kind of silly. I watched us win both of our most recent Cups, and I don’t consider them ‘mine’. I was proud that we had the best team in the league those two years, just as I was proud that we finished first in the East a few years back. But ‘rubbing it in’… I don’t get it.

One of my favourite moments was sitting in the Hamptons (don’t ask) a couple of summers back, and finding myself talking hockey with a Rangers fan. Neither of us had expected to find a fellow hockey fan in Jon Bon Jovi’s bar in East Hampton in the middle of July, and we had a great ‘Original Six’ chat, none of which had any ‘rubbing in’ of anything. We agreed to dislike certain players on each others’ roster, and expressed respect for the things the team had done, and was doing, right.

He gave me his card and said that I could come watch a Habs game at the Gahdens with him whenever I liked, in his season ticket seats. Shame I couldn’t take him up on it.

Fans are fans and are going to support their teams no matter what and that is as it should be. It’s ridiculous to rag other fans because their teams have not won as many championships as others. It implies that the only worthwhile support goes to the one team every year that needs it the least, the very antithesis of fandom.

If you guys can’t handle a little friendly trash talking then i can’t see what fun you would be to go drinking with. I live in CGY and expect someone to rag on the Habs, that’s ok, I can give as well as I can take. It’s pretty easy when you support such a legendary franchise and have a thick skin.
If I have a friend who likes the Leafs, what should I do, talk about their 1963 stanley cup or the 50 year gap in between? If he takes offense to it well he needs to lighten up and chances are he’s also another person I would not enjoy a drink with anyways with such a contentious attitude. Now would i trash talk someone I don’t know? no, but if I know them well enough it’s fair game.

Rag on their current roster, coaches, bone headed trades. Surely you can find enough ammunition, no? If the best you can do is “our team has won the most cups” and “your team hasn’t won in almost 50 years” then you’re probably a bit of a drag to drink with as well.

I worked with a Leafs fan, and in the first week of the season a couple of years back, he came in and slagged me for a particularly painful Habs loss. I told him to spare me the ‘hilarious-good-time-trash-talking’ and I would spare him the same thing, which probably would have been more painful for him in the end.

We spent the season comiserating together, and congratulating each other on good performances.

I always prefer that.

And I’m sorry if I can’t help you if you need mutual antipathy to enjoy your beer.

Trade PK for Nail… Edm fans would laugh in our face and say it is NOT enough. We say “no way, PK is more valuable then Nail””.

But let’s pretend this was even a real thought. Edm would do this cause they are loaded with young star forwards. Habs can do it if they feel that Beaulieu can take over whatever importance PK has on this team down the line. A trade like this is not to make the habs better this season (if one), or even next season. This is a question about would we be better with Nail and Beaulieu in 3+ yrs from now. Or are we a better team with PK and Beaulieu in 3+ yrs from now. What is easier to replace over the next 1-5 yrs….a player like Nail (Edm already has many to replace him) or a player like PK (MTL can sign a FA or keep drafting O type Dmen to add to Beaulieu, Ellis, Diaz already in the system). Typically a team can no do wrong in trading from their strength to fix a weakness. Both Edm and Habs would be doing this in such a trade.

I don’t think Edmonton drafted Nail first to trade him. I think Schultz will be better than PK. PK is a marketing machine. He will bring fans to seats and sell product so his value is best in a place with seats to fill. So that being said it doesn’t make sense to me unless Edmonton is moving South.

They don’t know about the game
Found armour in Bettman’s head
From basketball century
Pre-dictator, I think
They don’t know how game is played
They try armour to be steady
Passion out of the new lock-out tension
Lashing out ‘cause of the no-game tension

Dismissing us all and creating this tension

That morning broke out with the news of a lock-out
End of another season, without any backup,
Where you could say Fehr’s already chronologically “f****d up”
Put game on hold not disputing the lock-out

Now I know of a place it’s dark and it’s rotted

It’s a cool, sour kinda place where the players won’t spot it
And fans destroyed the map, taken from their gut’s pit,
However, the NHL has dumped everybody

It’d be better for all if we don’t understand
Media or fans, no one does understand

(Instrumental)

Now the rink is the gone place, it’s dark and it’s rotted
It’s a cool, dank kinda place where no hockey is spotted
And fans destroyed the map, taken from their last trip,

However, the NHL has dumped everybody
It’d be better for us if we don’t understand
It’s better for all if we don’t understand
Bettman doesn’t want us to understand

As some of you know there’s an election in the US. No this isn’t a political post.

One of the interesting side-stories has been the growing use of statistical models taken from sports, mostly baseball (Sabremetrics), to predict the election.

Just like in baseball and hockey there’s an old-guard versus young-turks argument going on. The old guard says get lost with your fancy numbers while the young turks just laugh with contempt.

The most famous of the statsheads is Nate Silver, who actually started off in baseball. He now has Obama at 91% chance of winning, which is considerably at odds with the punditry on the left and right.

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What I WANT ! is an aircraft carrier at centre and nuclear destroyers on each wing going to the net like bats out of Hell !, …NO MORE rubber duckies !!!
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Habitant means PASSIONATE HOCKEYhttp://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=423049

Whooooow. Hold your horses there Kevy. These 2 sides are still far apart and nothing much has changed. Still 2 people at the top (Betthead and Fehr) who have too much ego to lose this battle. No way an agreement is made this week. I don’t think the NHL is in a big rush now anyway with the Winter Classis now cancelled.

I thought Mantha played pretty well. Like you said he threw some some but was pretty quiet for the first 2 periods. But that was enough to bump him up to the Huberdeau/MacKinnon line in the third to provide a spark. I thought he did that and those two stepped it up in the third.

You have to wonder how much of an impact the lockout will have this time around. After the last lockout the league rule changes gave us a much faster game due to much less clutching and grabbing. That was also the year two of the most dynamic players in many,many years had entered the league in crosby and ovechkin. There were reasons for fans interest even though an entire season was lost. The hard core fans will no doubt be back but what does the league have for leverage to give the other half of the NHL fan base a reason to come back? Hybrid icing?

Looking good for my NFL pool this week Amigos! Tied for first with 5 other guys. 3 us have the Saints and 2 have Eagles tonight. I have 46 on the tie breaker. Vick is back tonight? Damn! Oh yeah, Hey Buttman, send me a memo when you’re ready to drop the puck you little bast*rd.

Why does Geoffrion suddenly look so good, compared to how terrible he was in the NHL last year?

Every time I saw him play, he looked like the slowest player on the ice. That seems like the type of thing that could be masked playing at the slower AHL pace, but something that he could never overcome at NHL speed.

He’s a lot more experienced then most of the other Dog players. That’s probably seperating him from the pack. As far as his improvement from last year? He’s obviously worked on his game during the off season. Time will tell but I still don’t think he’s a top 6 forward.

i really believe that Mr Molson will do something special for us fans that no other owner can do once this lockout is over . this is the beginning of his ownership of the Montreal Canadiens , sure he was there last year but he now has his guys in place. he was part of the hiring of the GM and even though he let his GM pick the coach , thats just good bussiness

I know the movement in the Labour talks is big news. But I get so excited over two Bulldog players I cant help it.

Thanks to Habfab for his bulldog stats link. I think he is excited too.

Look at the stats … WOW WOW WOW re Gallagher and Bournival. Look at their plus minus. Look at their ascendancy to top line. Compare to Geoffrion and Palushaj, ‘veteran AHLers’.

I’ve said it 1000 times and this will make it 1001 and tomorrow I’ll make it 1002. Gallagher and Bournival are gonna be stars for the CH… by next year and for a long long time. Man I wish they get some games up here duriing this season, when it happens.

Habstrin- at the mini summit game Gallagher was the best player for the Dogs. I think the jury is still out on Bournival but the point is the club has many young players with NHL potential. Adding the recent draft prospects and the future does look bright.

I didn’t like him last year in Montreal but I have to admit he’s really caught my eye in Hamilton this year.

And now that I know Bergevin and Therrien will not stand for a bunch of pushovers, I don’t mind having Geoffrion, who’s not a scrapper, on the 4th line because we’ll have a few more guys elsewhere in the lineup to take care of that stuff…..FINALLY!

I don’t think he understood my joke though (or maybe he’s heard it a 1000 times)… the one about him making sure that Trevor Timmins and the Habs scouts have full access to scout his future kids one day.